Tag Archives: Bedminster Police

On December 29, 2011, Franklin Township Municipal Court Judge E. Ronald Wright signed an Order directing the Bedminster Police Department to comply within ten days.

The provisions of said Order included the return of all of this publisher’s equipment and materials seized pursuant to a November 2009 search warrant executed by Bedminster Police Detective Nanci Arraial, and assisted by, among others, Westwood Police Detective Robert Saul Jr.

The Bedminster Police Department was first in default of the Court Order when it failed to comply within ten days. On January 11, 2012, Bedminster Police Department Dlt. Craig Meyer delivered the seized equipment to MrWestwood.com’s attorney in Westwood.

At that time, it was noted that the Bedminster Police Department failed to return both the copies of the data retrieved from the equipment, and all of the photographic images of the dwelling taken during the seizure, in violation of Judge Wright’s Order.

In court on January 26, 2012, this publisher’s attorney brought the Bedminster Police Department’s non-compliance with the Order to Judge Wright’s attention. As a result, Judge Wright ordered Bedminster Police Department’s Nanci Arraial to comply with the remaining provisions of his Order, and to provide proof of full compliance by way of certifications.

As of this date, the Bedminster Police Department is still in default of a number of provisions of Judge Wright’s Order, specifically: the return of all equipment undamaged and untampered with, and in the condition in which it was seized; the return of all copies of the data taken from the seized equipment, together with all photographic images of the dwelling/premises taken during the execution of the search warrant, and all copies of said data and images.

The returned property is still being examined, but a limited examination by this publisher reveals damage and tampering to the seized property; the data, images, and copies have not been returned either. The Bedminster NJ Police Department is in continued violation of Judge Wright’s Court Order.

Imagine one morning in your Westwood home while you’re getting ready for work, your doorbell rings. You answer the door to find a handful of Somerset County cops yelling at you to let them in. They have a search warrant and they tell you if you don’t let them in, they will arrest you for obstruction. You discover that one of those cops is Westwood Police Detective Robert Saul, Jr.

You call your lawyer, then you reluctantly let them in.

When it’s all said and done, the police cart off 18 separate items of valuable personal property consisting of computers and computer related equipment and materials, plus an mp3 player, a cell phone and a digital camera.

Upon inspection of the search warrant/communications data warrant, you discover that the subject of the police investigation is your website exposé of Rutgers University and one of its directors, Amy H. Wollock, Esq.

The scenario described above happened to this website’s publisher one morning in November, 2009. In an effort to assert my news media status which entitles me to protections against searches and seizures of this kind, and to reclaim all of the seized materials, I filed a civil lawsuit in January 2010 against, among others, Bedminster Police Detective Nanci Arraial and Westwood Police Detective Robert Saul, Jr.

Though the statutory protections exist, there is no legal precedent in New Jersey for the protections I assert. Mine is a landmark case for news media status protections of an internet publisher, with some similarities to the recent Too Much Media vs. Shellee Hale decision by the New Jersey Supreme Court.